1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet recording apparatus, particularly to an ink-jet recording apparatus for “margin-free recording” for printing on the peripheral area including the edge of a recording medium, the apparatus comprising a printing system provided with plural ink-ejecting devices and a controller for selecting a low-penetrable ink and a high-penetrable ink for the areas of the recording medium for image formation. The present invention also relates to an ink-jet recording method employing the ink-jet recording apparatus.
2. Related Background Arts
Known recording apparatuses having a function of a printer, a copying machine, a facsimile machine, or the like, and known recording apparatuses employed as output devices of combined type electronic apparatuses including computers and word processors are constituted to form desired images on a recording medium in accordance with image information. The ink-jet recording apparatus is one of such recording apparatuses. The ink-jet recording apparatus conducts recording by ejecting an ink from a recording head onto a recording medium in accordance with image information. The ink-jet recording apparatus has advantages of compactness of the recording head, high speed of recording with high fineness of recorded images, needlessness of special treatment of printing paper, low running cost, low noise generation, ease of full color image recording with multiple color inks, and so forth.
In recording with the aforementioned ink-jet recording apparatus, the image is not usually formed on the peripheral area of the recording medium. For example as shown in FIG. 7, the image is usually formed in the image formation area 50, but is not formed in the peripheral area 51 of the recording medium. Ink-jet recording has been widely popularized, and is employed in recording on various recording media for various purposes. Consequently, ink-jet recording is employed occasionally in “margin-free recording” which records images on a peripheral area of the recording medium including its edge.
In the margin-free recording by an ink-jet system with a liquid ink such as an aqueous dye ink or an aqueous pigment ink, the ink adhered to an ink-absorbing member provided on a platen is liable to stain the reverse face of the recording medium. Moreover, in the margin-free recording, the recording medium such as a paper sheet is liable to jam to cause sheet delivery failure. Therefore, various techniques are disclosed for practicing the margin-free recording. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-128964 discloses an ink-jet recording apparatus which comprises a guiding means and an ink-receiving means: the guiding means being provided inside the edges of the recording medium sheet so as to be movable in accordance with the size of the recording medium in the direction perpendicular to the recording medium delivery direction, and the ink-receiving means for receiving the ink from the recording head being provided adjacent to the guiding means outside the direction perpendicular to the recording medium delivery direction.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-227229 discloses a selective use of a pigment ink and a dye ink according to the type of the recording paper sheet and the type of the image to be recorded. In the known jet printing systems, the selective use of the inks according to the type of recording paper sheets and of the images is frequently employed in black color expression. In these systems, the recording is conducted by selecting a suitable ink for the recording medium and the type of image from among a low-penetrable pigment ink, a high-penetrable dye ink, and a so-called process black (hereinafter referred to as “PCBk”). For example, for printing black letters on a plain paper sheet, a low-penetrable black pigment ink is selectively used, or a high-penetrable dye ink is firstly applied and thereon the low-penetrable black pigment ink is applied. For printing images of black letters on an ink-jet printing paper sheet, a high-penetrable dye ink is selected. For printing a landscape or a portrait other than letters, a black ink is used for UCR (under color removal) in a high-density portion, or a process black is used on a low-density non-colored portion in place of the black ink. However, these methods select the ink depending on the type of the recording paper sheet or the type of the image to be formed, but do not select the ink depending on the image formation area of a recording medium.